Five TASD fifth graders take the case for magnet schools to Capitol Hill

Five fifth graders from the Texarkana Arkansas School District are taking the case for their schools to Capitol Hill this week. For every one of them, it starts with a first plane ride.

The students, one from each of the district’s five magnet elementary schools, are scheduled to fly out of Texarkana Regional Airport at 6 a.m. Tuesday, connecting through Dallas-Fort Worth to Washington, D.C. They will attend Magnet Schools of America’s Fall Policy Conference and, on Thursday, visit the offices of Arkansas’ congressional delegation to talk about what magnet programs look like in Texarkana.

“Of course the congressional legislators want to hear from the adults that are doing the work, but it’s more impactful, in my opinion, to bring students,” said Larry Dunn, TASD’s Director of Magnet Programs and Enrollment, who is leading the trip. “The entire premise of magnet is to be able to realize what education can look like from the student perspective, using thematic programming.”

Dunn said TASD will be the only school district in the nation bringing students to the conference. He attended last year and came back and spoke with Superintendent Lloyd Jackson about the importance of having students there.

When TXKtoday sat down with the group Monday afternoon at the TASD administration building, Dunn asked how many of them had flown before. None of them had.

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One student from each magnet school

Each of TASD’s five elementary campuses has its own magnet theme, and the whole school takes part, not just one class. Students get an introduction to the theme in kindergarten through second grade, and it opens up in third through fifth grade, Dunn said. The district’s goal is to carry those themes through middle school and high school as one continuous pathway from kindergarten through 12th grade.

The five students introduced themselves and their schools:

• Asher Oswald, Kilpatrick Academy of Public Service. “One thing we do is learn about the importance of the jobs in our community.”
• Sadie Embry, Trice Academy of Performing Arts. Sadie plays cello on Trice’s orchestra team. Regular music classes work only with violin, Sadie said, but the orchestra has violin, viola, cello and bass.
• Leelend Basurto, Fairview Academy of Humanities and Innovation. Fairview is getting a new building. Dunn said it will house an indoor gym, a music room, an art room and a few classrooms. The new indoor classroom spaces are paid for through the district’s second-lien bond project, the district said.
• Londyn Eason, North Heights Community School. North Heights runs a MicroSociety program, in which students hold real jobs in a working mini-town inside the school, “whether it’s police officer, it could be the mayor, or you can run a business.” Londyn helps supervise a holiday shop where first graders make holiday items.
• Jenny Chhang, Harmony Academy of Music and the Arts. Jenny plays flute in one of Harmony’s fifth-grade performance ensembles. Students can choose flute, horn or keyboard. The ensembles are new at Harmony this year.

All five are members of TASD’s Junior Magnet Advisory Council, which the district started about two years ago “as a way to activate student voice and choice” in its magnet programs, Dunn said. About 30 third, fourth and fifth graders serve on the council. This year it has focused on what Dunn calls the five pillars of magnet leadership: communicate, connect, advocate, represent and lead.

The district picked the five travelers from the council’s fifth graders. This year’s group went through a leadership retreat and an installation ceremony, and last year council members toured the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock.

“We’ve really been looking at all of our fifth graders and identifying those who have the skills and confidence to serve on the Junior Magnet Advisory Council, represent our schools, speak positively about our community, and share all the great things happening in the Texarkana Arkansas School District” Dunn said. “I think we settled upon the absolute best.”

Meetings on Capitol Hill

Thursday is set aside for advocacy on Capitol Hill. Dunn said the group has a noon appointment with Sen. John Boozman, a 1 p.m. meeting in Sen. Tom Cotton’s office and a 2:30 p.m. meeting with Rep. Steve Womack. Depending on schedules, the students will meet either the lawmakers themselves or members of their staffs.

The visits come as federal money for magnet schools is in question. The White House’s budget request for fiscal 2027 again proposes ending the U.S. Department of Education’s Magnet Schools Assistance Program and folding it into a broader block grant. Magnet Schools of America opposes the proposal, saying it would end the only federal program dedicated to magnet schools.

That program pays for much of TASD’s magnet work. In 2024 the district won an $11.4 million, five-year Magnet Schools Assistance Program grant for what it calls Project Legacy, which created the magnet themes at Fairview, Kilpatrick and Harmony. The grant is now in its third year, and the district said this year’s work is focused only on carrying out the themes at those three schools. Harmony’s new fifth-grade ensembles are part of that work. Dunn said this is the district’s fourth magnet grant. The trip is paid for with Project Legacy funds, he said.

Monuments, museums and “Mamma Mia!”

The trip isn’t all meetings. The group’s itinerary includes a nighttime tour of the monuments on the National Mall, a tour of the U.S. Capitol, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, an escape room, dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and a performance of “Mamma Mia!” at the National Theatre. The group flies home Friday.

Asked what they were most excited about, the students named the escape room, the monument walk, the Library of Congress, the Capitol Visitor Center, the Hard Rock Cafe and “Mamma Mia!” More than one said the plane ride.

Dunn said each stop ties back to the classroom. “Mamma Mia!” connects to the performing arts magnets, the escape room exercises problem-solving and critical thinking, and the Hill visits put the council’s leadership training to work.

“We learn the curriculum through textbooks, classroom instruction, and even virtual experiences, and all of those play an important role in a student’s education. But there’s something especially powerful about taking that learning beyond the classroom walls. When students have the opportunity to experience something firsthand, make real-world connections, and see what they’ve been learning come to life, those are the experiences that truly stick with them” he said.

Parents are traveling with the group, along with Dunn and Cecelia Sasser, who also works in the district’s magnet office.

“They’re some of the best and brightest,” Dunn said. “I would put them up against any of the fifth graders in the nation because they are so talented, so smart, and this gives them an opportunity to continue refining their learning and to really learn beyond the walls of their classrooms.”

Asked whether everyone would be up in time for a 6 a.m. flight, one student said they would probably be standing at Mom’s door in the morning. Not many had packed yet.

The trip comes a month after TASD’s state letter grade rose from a D to a C, with gains in every tested subject. North Heights posted the district’s biggest improvement, rising from a C to a B, and Kilpatrick moved up from an F to a D. Harmony and Arkansas Middle School remained F-rated.